www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Evangelizing North America

So don't let Rome know what we are up to. When the majority are ECs, then it will be too late for Rome to do much about it, won't it? Who says the Latins have to be dominant in the Church?

Dear Administrator,

I don't understand how . . . but I agree with everything you said in your last post . . .

I wonder how . . . could it be . . . no, it couldn't be . . .

Anyway, just don't expect your single Byzantine jurisdiction to get off the ground flying.

But I'll do my best from my end here.

And I've already been on TV explaining why we need to attract North Americans to our churches.

Have you ever been on TV?

Alex

Dear byzanTN,

If all our church members were like you, we'd have SEVERAL patriarchates by now!!

Good for you! Congratulations!

Alex

I have been reading the various posts contained in this thread.

Yes, America is a melting pot more like a salad. I am a native New Yorker Sicilian/German (no jokes please )who grew up in an area with Germans, Italians, Greeks, Albanians, Arabic, Puerto Ricans, Irish ... etc.

We would have feasts and various fairs (ethnic). I loved to be invited to these different affairs. I loved experiencing the culture and listening to the music although I did not understand a word of it. Hey, I married a Polish guy! Talk about differences in culture.

I don't see the cultural aspect as being as intimidating as one would think.

I believe our problem with Evangelization is the fact that we just don't invite people to know us as a historical church.

Most people just think were are just another brand of Christianity or an Ethnic brand of Christianity. They would really be amazed at our history and our writings.

Here's a recent story about the facts and figures of North America

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5465761/

From the Article - "People who said they belonged to other religions � including Islam, Orthodox Christianity or Eastern faiths � increased from 3 percent to 7 percent between 1993 and 2002, while the share of people who said they were Jewish remained stable at just under 2 percent."

"The Roman Catholic population has remained relatively stable over the period, making up about 25 percent of the U.S. population."

PLUS what we all need to take advantage of is that the name "Roman Catholic" which is a turn off for many people (due to misconceptions) is not really associated with us.

I know this sounds strange. My son goes to a Christian school - 93 percent protestant. The protestants are more at ease to speak with me about spiritual matters because I identify myself as a Byzantine and when ask specifically what that is I tell I am an Eastern Christian. While the Roman Catholics they don't engage in any dialoge especially my Tridentine Mass husband. This is to our advantage. They are usually amazed when I talk about some of the early fathers. They readily give me an ear eventhough my Tridentine husband is more knowledgeable about their writings than I am.

People are truly searching for a strong message. A let your yes be yes and your no be no as far as religion is concerned. That is why many people are getting turned off by the secular christian churches. That is to our advantage.

Instead of looking at our Ethnic face, we need to look past that to what we have going for us.

Gina

Dear Gina,

Excellent points!

This is also why I so strongly disagree with the Administrator's Grand Scheme - I think it will have the effect of "cosmopolitanizing" our various "church cultures."

Americans may have a cultural salad bowl, but they need to look to the Canadian experience to fully understand multiculturalism.

Toronto itself has the second largest non-native born population in the world!

But as Hal said, there is no way our ethnic parishes are going to give up the status quo - even if it is killing them.

So there's going to have to be another way.

I'm sure the Administrator will come up with one, hopefully before I go for my interview on the subject in September.

Alex

Dear Admin:

You, sir, have taken my comment out of context and you know it. What I said was that your average North American of Ukrainian decent will not care if there is an ethnically-neutral Byzantine Rite Catholic Church. Perhaps a better choice of words would have been that we have no objection to this.

So this is all about money, is it? Come on!

But in so doing, we would be abandoning our bretheren in the old country. As you well know, we still have our hands full helping to re-build the Kyivan Church in Ukraine. If we don't - who will? The Ukrainian Church cannot build itself up from within Ukraine alone. Are you suggesting that we abandon them?

No one ever said that it was. Once again, bring people into your ethnically-neutral Church. Have fun. We'll even send delegations for your big celebrations as a sign of fellowship and love. However, why can you not respect the fact that we beleive that our CURRENT role in Chrisendom must remain limited to helping our mother Church?.

I have no doubt that this role will eventually change. Then, of there's anything left of us, your position will hold water.

Until then, your proposal, while visionary, is WAY premature.

So, you are asking us to abandon our post to join you into as-yet un-charted waters?

Please don't take me the wrong way. I hope you succeed. But please understand that we here, even after 13 years of a soveriegn Ukraine, still feel that we have a lot of work left to do in the re-evangelization of our kinsmen there.

Blood is thicker than water. If we had the time and money, we could join you. But right now, as others have suggested, your notion of evangelizing North America cannot be our primary goal.

Yours,

hal

I agree with the Admin that Eastern (or Byzantine) thought would be very attractive for many in America on several levels;

1) Americans are always looking for new experiences. This is the unfortunate reason that paganistic eastern mysticism is attracting many dilettantes in the West. Replace that search for the transcendant which leads to the New Age, with a search for the transcendent that leads to Eastern Christianity.

2) The pluralistic values of the West are actually more amenable to the Eastern appreciation of mystery than the Latin appreciation for resolution. The Eastern appreciation for mystery tends to less dogmatization to which the current trend of Western thought would be more agreeable.

3) The greater focus on "down -> up" ecclesiology in the Eastern churches is more democratic than the Latin ecclesiology.

Active evangelization from the East would definitely attract Westerners (I mean, Protestants and unchurched).

Blessings,
Marduk

Once or twice every summer my grandmother would make blueberry, and a mixture of blueberry and raspberries perohy. I can't believe that Californians and other Southwestern states would not be interested in these low carbohydrate (calorie) alternatives to the potato and cheese variety.

I must admit that I have a lot of respect for the women who run the 'food fairs' at our churches. They work from the heart, make people happy, provide a sense of community, and generate a lot of money for the churches. They deserve our thanks.

Hritzko

Hritzko

Hal wrote:

To me it's not a vision of an "ethnically-neutral Church." I think what we're called to do is make the Church accessible to our own people: "ethnos" is Greek for "people; culture."

St Paul said: "To the Jew I became as a Jew...to those without the law as one not under law...that I might gain all."

What is needed is not an "ethnically-neutral" Church but one that is sensitive to the needs of the people and culture of those in its neighborhood. An American or Canadian ethnic Church...be it "salad bowl" or "multicultural."

We cannot limit our attention to a Mother Church. We must also evangelize the people in our neighborhood also.

Hal,

Thanks for your post.

I took your comment as I understood it. I agree that the average Ukrainian Catholic does not care if there is a pan-ethnic Byzantine Catholic Church. The challenge is to show them that the Gospel commands them to baptize all the nations. The challenge is to make them care.

Not about money at all. It�s about a single, unified witness of Jesus Christ spoken in a context attractive to North America. It�s about the best utilization of people resources.

A pan-ethnic Byzantine Catholic Church does not yet exist. It can only be created by people who are already Byzantine Catholic. If those who are currently Byzantine Catholic are not willing to evangelize then such a Church will never exist.

There is no reason why the ethnic Byzantine Catholic Churches cannot evangelize their unchurched neighbors at the same time as they help the mother Churches.

Why is it necessary to abandon your mother Church in Europe in order to invite your neighbor to join your Church? All that is necessary is to place an English language Liturgy on a par with a Church Slavonic (or other foreign language) Liturgy and to treat those of other ethnicities as equals. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Given that the Ukrainian Church in Canada has lost more than 1/3 of it�s people since 1990 and the demographic trends indicate that it will loose another � in the next decade and close half of its parishes, it seems logical to start building a strong pan-ethnic Church. Such a pan-Byzantine Church will give Ukrainians a place to worship when Ukrainian-ethnic-only parishes are no longer self-sustaining. Such a pan-ethnic Byzantine Church can continue to help the Church in Europe once the Ukrainian-ethnic-only Church (and other ethnic Churches) are gone.

Admin

With limited time and resourse, we must go where the seed will bear the most fruit. For us, that's Ukraine. For you, that might be something different.

Why begrudge us our antcestral ties while we still have and recognzie them?

I don't get it.

Yours,

hal

Dear Gina:

I would like to add some observations on the linked survey:

(1) the universe of the statistical survey was the TOTAL U.S. population, and not that of North America (which includes Canada and Mexico).

(2) the reference for each religious group is taken as a percentage of their respective numbers in 1993 and 2002 versus the total U.S. population for each year.

(3) the total U.S. population INCREASED from 1993 through 2002, so that to maintain a stable ~2% for the Jewish adherents, they also have to increase in numbers. Likewise, for the Catholic Church, there should be a corresponding increase to remain stable at ~25% of the total U.S. population.

(4) the 3%-7% estimated increase, percentage wise of the total U.S. population, on the "other" religions, which lump Islam, Eastern Christianity (probably Orthodox only), and Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, I suspect that the bulk of the increase is in the number of adherents to Islam and not Eastern Christianity.

Parenthetically, the Southern Baptist Convention used to be the largest organized religious body in the U.S., followed by the Catholic Church. Then, as a group, Protestants of all denominations were the overwhelming majority of Christians in the U.S. Today, the single largest organized religious body in the U.S. is the Catholic Church (East and West) at ~65 million, or about 25% of the TOTAL U.S. population, the SBC coming in second at around 20 to 25 million.

Amado

Hal,

I don't begrudge the ties. Never said I did. If you re-read my post above you'll see I did not deny any ministry to a Mother Church. I just said we can't limit it to that.

I just said that we're called to evangelize where we are also. As St Paul said, "we become all things to all people that we might win them to Christ."

Yes, there is, sir. It's called the real world.

First - we are small and can never compete with the HUGE amounts of money being poured into Ukraine by the RC's, the Evangelicals and the Mormons. We just can't.

Asking us to expand our role right now is asking us to spread ourselves too thin.

It is a matter of priorities.

This goes beyond food or language or whatever. We feel that have a specific role to play. If others want to join us and respect that role, fine - come on in! It's happend more often than you might think.

We have our priority right now. Apparently, that priority is not the same as yours.

Once we are no longer needed over there, believe you me, those of us who care enough about the Rite will join you.

Forgive me, but who are you to decide what is the "best utilization" of other people's money?

What makes North American souls any more worthy than Ukrainian ones?

We want our money to help support the Church in Ukraine.

You seem to think that our money would be better spent on an evangelization program for North America.

Sorry! Seven years of higher education and I get to decide where and to whom my money goes. Not you.

Yours,

hal

Dear Mr. Brown:

Please see my comments to the Admin above.

Yours,

hal